


Anniversaries

by Rose Argent (roseargent)



Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 15:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseargent/pseuds/Rose%20Argent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year later, the work of surviving on Pulse is put aside for some very special days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anniversaries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sister_dear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_dear/gifts).



> Written for request #4: Team fic with any of the protagnoists. Life on Gran Pulse during or after the game; learning to work together and live together, or picking up the pieces.
> 
> I didn't so much "ignore" FFXIII-2 as have little to no knowledge of it in the first place, so this is definitely an AU; I went with a "Twilght of the Fal'Cie" sort of world, where there's very little contact with what Fal'Cie do remain, and even less magic. There was a lot of material to keep track of and I've never written these characters before, so I hope the choices I made work for you, and that you like the story.

"Light, mail's here..." 

Lightning looked up from packing her bag as Hope trailed off mid-sentence. "Anything good?"

"Uh. Letters from Sazh and Snow... are you leaving?" Hope's voice cracked a little, though mostly it was starting to settle into a deeper tone. 

Lightning frowned, and shook her head. "Tomorrow morning. Salvage team asked for my help with their next run. There are a few very persistent Amphisbaena that have been dogging the site lately." 

"Oh. Uh. How long do you think you'll be?" Hope was clearly trying to act unconcerned, which was odd--at this point he shouldn't need to _act_ unconcerned by a fairly routine supply run. 

It took Lightning a minute to do the math in her head, but once she did it all became a little clearer. "Don't worry, I'll be at the anniversary. I'll just have to meet you all there." She reached out, instinctively going to ruffle Hope's hair like Snow always did, but she stopped mid-movement. Was Hope too old for hair-ruffling now? He seemed to change his mind about that kind of thing five times a day. After a moment of awkward silence, Lightning settled for squeezing Hope's shoulder. "I'd never miss it." 

Hope smiled, though it was obvious he was feeling the awkwardness of the moment, too. "So... right, the mail. Sazh and Snow say they'll be here soon. Sazh just has a few things to finish up in Oerba and Snow's training group is almost ready for their final test, so he and Serah will be free in a few days. Oh! Sazh actually had a couple requests for the salvage team, but I already sent them the list."

"Good. Hey, if Sazh gets back before I do, can you remind him to take a look at the mechanism for rotating the tower? It would be good to get that up and running again. The engineering team never has the time for anything but weapons and defense development."

Hope gave a little salute. "Will do."

After tucking one last item into her bag, Lightning zipped it up and gave it an experimental heft. Still light enough that it wouldn't slow her down, but just barely. For just a moment she almost missed being a L'Cie, or at least all the extra strength and abilities that came with it. "Ready to go. Did you or your dad need anything from me before I go?"

"Nothing urgent. Though Dad's list of things he wants done just keeps getting longer." The lack of heat in Hope's complaint made Lightning smile a little. There were still bad patches, but Hope's relationship with his father seemed almost entirely repaired these days. 

The next morning, Hope was there at the base of the tower to see her off. He was yawning his head off, but he was there. "Late night?"

Hope stretched and yawned one more time before answering, "Going over the notes from the latest survey. We're looking good, really good. The line's holding and Dad says we can start thinking about expanding again soon."

That was really good news, though Lightning had had an inkling that it would be the case. Casualties were way down, and the provisionary government was becoming less provisionary by the day. It still took whole squads to do what a few L'Cie had been able to do before, but the more Pulse and Cocoon tech the engineers managed to cobble together, the smoother things were going. "That's great news."

"Be careful, okay?" Hope hugged her and for a moment Lightning was too startled to respond--Hope had gotten weird about physical contact around the same time his voice had started changing. But the moment passed and Lightning gave Hope a good squeeze before letting go.

"Always. I'll see you, and everyone, in five days."

"At the base," Hope agreed, stepping back. "Until then."

With one last wave, Lightning left the tower and jogged down to the Palisades Waystone. 

A full company of soldiers was waiting for her at the work site, which was now actually bigger than Oerba--it could be a town, if it had more civilians. She was actually really impressed; even with their leg-up in the tech department, they'd built this place up from nothing surprisingly quickly. Aerial enemies seemed to be their last remaining weak point. 

"Yo, Light!" A familiar voice drew Lightning's attention away from studying the site's new defenses.

"Rygdea. Looks like you're running a pretty tight ship, here."

Rygdea grinned and thumped her on the back, obviously proud of himself. "Don't sound so surprised. I'm just as competent as I am handsome."

Ignoring the banter, Lightning asked, "So who've you got who can fight without falling off a transport?" She looked up at the three Amphisbaena flying lazily around the site, just waiting for an opportunity.

"Take the fight up to them, huh?" Rygdea looked thoughtful for a moment. "I've got a few talented enough to pull that off. Good plan." He gave her another solid thump on the back, then started calling out names. By the time all the people he'd requested gathered they had a group of six, plus a pilot, Rygdea and Lightning. Just about all that could fit on one of the smaller, more agile transports and still have room to manoeuvre, but it could be tough if all three Amphisbaena came at them at once.

"How many manadrive units do you have?" The engineers had managed to make them work with Pulsian power sources once the old charges wore out, but they were still in short supply. Oerba and the other settlements' guard units had the bulk of them, since the villages had so many non-combatants to protect. The troops stationed at easily-defended locations like Taejin's Tower had almost none, though there were two that Lightning, Snow, Serah, and Hope traded around depending on who was in the field. 

Rygdea grinned again. "They actually just finished retro-fitting a new batch. Most of them are due to be shipped elsewhere, but we can borrow them in the mean time."

Lightning eyed the soldiers Rygdea had chosen, then the monsters, one more time. "Should be doable. We'll try to take them out one at a time, but have everyone load up on buffs just in case we end up with all three hitting at once." 

After a round of introductions and a quick discussion of the battle plan, they boarded the transport and got into formation around the pilot. 

Fighting while onboard a transport was hardly the kind of mid-air fight Lightning had gotten used to as a L'Cie--or even as a well-equipped member of the Guardian Corps--but she just couldn't make those gravity-defying leaps anymore. Rygdea's troops were good, though--they didn't get in her way, or each other's, and they adapted to the lack of solid footing quickly. All three enemies went down without any human casualties, and only one shorted-out manadrive unit. There were a few minor injuries and one possible concussion for the medics to deal with, but overall Lightning was pleased.

Clearly, Rygdea was too, because he all but knocked her over with one last 'pat' on her back. "That went smoothly. We'll definitely keep that tactic in mind in the future. You heading back to the Tower?"

Lightning shook her head. "I'll head up with the salvage team, just in case there's any surprises." That, and it had been months since she'd last set foot on Cocoon. It wasn't home anymore, and with limited power it was hardly a place for nostalgia, but Lightning was still drawn to it, now and then. 

"Not much to see up there," Rygdea warned her. "There's a lot of doors they still can't get open."

"I know." When they'd cut their way through Eden to get to Orphan, it had been shocking to realise just how many doors were not just powered by Fal'Cie, but were actual Fal'Cie themselves. Lightning had never really noticed, until the Fal'Cie had become her enemies. Now it took a lot of work and the careful application of explosives to open those doors, and even more work for the ones blocked by rubble. It was going to be a long time before they managed to get through them all. "I'd better go catch them before they leave."

The salvage team was more than happy to have Lightning tag along--they were all capable of fighting if they had to, but most of them would rather be spending their time on recovering as much tech and material as possible from the remains of Cocoon.

This particular team's destination was Palumpolum; it still had a sizeable population of people unwilling to relocate, but they tolerated the salvage teams as long as they only took from areas that had been abandoned to preserve power. For Lightning it was a weird few days. She'd never spent much time in Palumpolum before she'd become L'Cie, never really seen the peaceful side of the city except in videos, but the quiet of abandonment was surreal after seeing the city in chaos. She'd pass a charred spot in the road and remember the blast that left the mark, but mostly the neighbourhoods they worked in were intact... but dark, and abandoned.

She still hadn't gone back to what was left of Bodhum, and didn't think she ever would. The home where she'd lived with Serah... seeing it destroyed would be too much.

Since no stray monsters or angry citizens made appearances, Lightning just helped with the lifting and hauling, leaving the more delicate technical bits to the experts. It was a productive four days but it sounded like this would be the last visit to Palumpolum, unless the current residents changed their minds and moved down to Pulse. Lightning took the last transport down, acting as rearguard just in case, but everyone touched down at the site without incident. 

Lightning still had a day before the anniversary ceremony with everyone, but going all the way back to the Tower only to return here tomorrow seemed like a waste. Rygdea could probably find her a bunk in the barracks. After asking around a bit Lightning found out that Rygdea was at what was being called the "town hall," for lack of a better term. The place was easy enough to find, being in the centre of the site.

The first thing Lightning noticed when she walked into the town hall was that it was emptier than she'd expected. After a heartbeat of silence, people jumped out and shouted "Surprise!" and Lightning had her sword half out of the sheath before she got her instinctive response under control.

She sought out Snow, eyes narrowing. This _had_ to be his idea. But Serah was at her side in a flash, taking her arm and laughing. "Ah ah, don't go looking to blame Snow. This one was mostly me. Happy birthday, Claire!"

Lightning blinked. It was, wasn't it? The day before the anniversary of the Purge, and her 22nd birthday. She managed a rather wry smile and hugged Serah. "Thank you." She didn't mention that she liked this surprise _much_ better than last year's, but she could tell that Serah was thinking the same from just how tight her little sister was hugging her.

"No hogging the birthday girl!" Snow hugged them both, then dragged Lightning over to the table in the middle of the room. The cover had been pulled off it and Lightning could see it was covered with wrapped boxes. "Time for presents!"

Lightning slugged Snow in the shoulder, though lightly enough so he'd know she didn't mean it. "You're awfully smug for this being 'mostly' Serah's idea." 

Sazh gave her a quick one-armed squeeze when she reached the table. "Hey there, birthday girl. For the record, this is all on the kids. But I may have helped. Under protest, of course."

"Of course." Lightning laughed, while the others started shoving presents at her. She waved them off for a moment, and pulled Hope out of the corner. "There. Now the party's complete."

"You're not mad?" Hope ducked his head a little, for a moment looking as young and uncertain as he had when they first met.

"Definitely not mad. Which one's your gift?" 

Hope smiled, and offered her a carefully-wrapped box. Lightning opened that one first, finding a book inside. It was beautifully bound, covered in the leather that local artisans had started producing from monster hides. "It's a bestiary. Dad helped me organise it..."

Flipping through it for a moment, Lightning realised it was very thorough, and would much more helpful than the scattered notes she'd been taking every time they learned something new about one of the many monsters of Pulse. There was also room for adding new information. "This is really nice, Hope. We should make copies for the captains of all the field units."

"That was the plan. They won't be leather-bound or anything, yours is special. But it's good? It'll help?" 

"It'll help a _lot_." Hope just about lit up with pleasure and Lightning hugged him hard, teenage awkwardness be damned. 

Snow gave Hope the hair-ruffling of a lifetime, grinning like a loon. "Way too cool, you're making everyone else look bad!"

"Open ours next?" Serah asked, holding out a box no bigger than the palm of her hand. "It's from both of us."

Lightning couldn't help but arch an eyebrow at that, just a little. But inside the box was a pair of delicately-wrought earrings, each a slightly different pattern of silver wire artfully twisted around a slender monster fang. They reminded Lightning of Fang's earrings, and for a moment she was desperately sad. But the moment passed, and the good memories won out. "They're beautiful. And not practical at all." 

Snow winced, but Serah smiled, hugging Lightning again. She was still a lot better at reading Lightning's moods than Snow was. "Not one bit. But the fangs are from the first monster I killed all by myself, and Snow did the wire."

Now that was a surprise, and it must have shown on her face because Snow loosened back up and laughed. "Didn't know I had it in me, huh? Well, Serah brings out the artist in me, right Serah?"

Serah laughed, too, and whispered into Lightning's ear, "He did it so many times before he was happy with it that the metalworkers refused to even talk to us for a week, because he'd used so much wire. They had to melt most of it down again."

Lightning snorted and shook her head. "Sounds about right."

"Hey, hey, what did you say? Ganging up on me..." Snow did his best hangdog look for a moment, then laughed it off. "Fine, fine. This hero can take more than a few knocks without going down."

Sazh insisted on saving his gift for last, so Lightning opened the ones from Bartholomew, Rygdea and Dajh first. Bartholomew and Rygdea had both gone with practical gifts--beautifully made and very durable new boots from Hope's father and from Rygdea a pair of gloves with jointed metal plates over the knuckles. Dajh had made her a hair tie decorated with his Chocobo chick's shed feathers. Bartholomew and Rygdea sent notes, too, but left the actual party to just the core of Lightning's family. "Dajh sends his love, but I figured it was better for him to stay in Oerba this time. He's a little too young yet for tomorrow's deal, you know?"

"Well, I'll pop by Oerba soon to thank him for the gift in person." It was a little too cute for Lightning to wear on a regular basis, but she could tell how much work Dajh had put into it. "And thank the chick, too, of course."

The only box left was the one from Sazh, and it was by far the biggest and heaviest of the lot. In fact, Lightning decided to leave it on the table while she opened it, since it was so hefty. Inside was... "Bhatki?! No, it looks a little different..."

"This guy's Bhaktwo. Took me a couple tries and a little help from a real engineer to get him working. I figured, that room of yours in the Tower could use a little life." Sazh rubbed the back of his head, looking a little rueful. "I mean, me and Dajh are in Oerba most of the time and the two lovebirds are all over the place..."

And while Hope had his father, Lightning's quarters housed her and her alone. She'd honestly thought about a pet, once or twice when she was feeling a bit down, but she was away on patrols and missions so often that it just wouldn't be fair to try to keep a living thing. "He's perfect."

Everyone tried to hug her at once, then, and after the traffic jam got sorted out they all settled at the table to eat. Lightning could tell Snow's friend Lebreau had done the cooking, and it was so good that she was awfully tempted to eat herself into a torpor. But tomorrow was a big day, too, so everyone restrained themselves a little with the food and the alcohol, before turning in for the night reasonably early.

The next morning Lightning, Snow, Sazh and Hope gathered again. The guards on patrol were the only other souls out, and Lightning suspected that Rygdea had instructed everyone else to give them their space for the morning. Serah had stayed behind, too; everyone had told her she'd be welcome, but she'd just said, "I didn't know them the way you did. I'll come later, after you've have a little bit of time with them."

They were all a little subdued as they made their way to the base of the crystal pillar. Lightning reached the pillar first, and gently put her hand on the crystal. "Good morning, Fang, Vanille. It's been a year to the day since the Purge, since we all got thrown together, and we've missed you."

The others joined her, then, each pressing one hand against the crystal. "We're all doing really well," Hope added after a moment of silence. 

Sazh went next, "That's right, we're hanging in there. Busy, way too busy, but we've got to keep protecting this world you saved, right? Your Oerba's all green and full of flowers again."

Snow said, "This is going to be a real town soon, and there's others, too. People are building all kinds of things, without needing Fal'Cie." 

Lightning closed her eyes and touched her forehead to the crystal, adding softly, "So you're going to wake up and come see it all sometime, right?" 

Everyone was silent, then, and Lightning felt someone take her hand. She squeezed, and the other hand squeezed back. She heard a throaty chuckle and opened her eyes in shock, to find that no one was holding her hand at all. The others were all looking a little stunned, too, but no one seemed quite ready to say anything just yet. 

Lightning took a long step back from the pillar and, hand to her heart, watched the light play over the crystal. "We _will_ find a way." 

The rest of the morning passed in quiet conversation, everyone catching up on each other's lives while Fang and Vanille's crystal tower watched over them. Serah joined them around noon, laden with a picnic lunch, and they stayed there, laughing and talking until sunset. 

There would always be work to do tomorrow, always be things that would call them away from each other for a time. The anniversary of the Fall was coming up, and the people still hadn't quite decided if they would take the day to celebrate their survival or mourn their losses, but whichever way it went there would be work to be done. But sitting there in the shadow of Cocoon, Lightning and the others promised that whatever happened down the road, they would keep this day for themselves and remember that they'd forged a family out of the fires of chaos.

-fin-


End file.
